


Ella's Favorite Player

by artistryforever



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternative Universe - No Island, F/M, Fluff, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 17:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16288814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artistryforever/pseuds/artistryforever
Summary: Felicity is a single mom with a five year old daughter who is obsessed with football and her favorite player is Starling Comet's quarterback Oliver Queen.





	Ella's Favorite Player

While pregnant with her daughter and imagining what she would be like, Felicity never guessed just how obsessed her little girl would become with football. 

She puts all the blame on her neighbor John Diggle, who is best friends and agent for one of the Starling City Comet’s football players. Whenever Ella has had a play date at the Diggle’s house, generally after school because Felicity is usually very busy with work and Ella goes to school with the Diggle’s daughter Sara, they always watched football together and very quickly Ella became fascinated by it. 

Even though Felicity was totally clueless when it came to sports talk, she was glad her little five year old had Diggle as a male figure in her life. Ella’s father left after learning that Felicity was pregnant and never looked back. While Felicity has always believed that they were better off without him, she always felt guilty that her daughter didn’t have a father in her life. Felicity was very glad that Ella at least has Diggle to look up to. She’s also very thankful for Diggle as well as his wife Lyla as they have become some of her closest friends.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, Felicity got out of her car and went to go pick up Ella from the Diggles. “Hey, come on in,” Lyla answered when Felicity knocked on their door. “Ella is with John and Sara in the living room watching old football tapes as usual,” she laughs.

Felicity smiles as she walks into their apartment. “Are you all packed to go to the beach for the weekend.”

“Yeah, thankfully. We have to leave early in the morning tomorrow and dealing with a sleepy Sara is no easy task,” Lyla chuckles.

“Yeah,” Felicity laughs, “I definitely know what you mean. Ella is exactly the same way. Getting ready for school is almost always a struggle in our house.” As they reach the living room Felicity watches as the two little girls and Diggle discuss different plays on the screen that go way over her own head. “Ella, it’s time to go baby,” she calls out.

“Momma can I stay for a few more minutes, pretty please?” Ella begs.

Felicity sighs at the familiar routine, “No, honey. We have to get back so that I can start dinner before it gets too late.” Ella pouts, but she turns to get ready.

“Hey, Felicity. How was your day?” Diggle asks.

Felicity groans, “Another long day at the office. This new project is taking longer than expected to get off the ground. It’s been all hands on deck for weeks, but thankfully it looks like we’re finally almost done. How was Ella today?”

Diggle smirks, “She was great. I think she might give me a run for my money though. I think you might have a future sports agent or sports star on your hands.”

Felicity snorts at that, “Yeah, I can see that. Maybe by then I’ll finally have learned all the rules to these games and I’ll actually be able to understand when you guys talk about this stuff.” Looking over at her daughter Felicity sees she’s still packing up, much slower than usual. “Honey, what is taking you so-”

Before she can finish, there’s a knock at the door and immediately both Ella and Sara look at each other with huge smiles on their faces making Felicity confused until Diggle goes to open the door and she sees who’s on the other side. Oliver Queen.

Oh yes. Now Ella’s slowness makes perfect sense. Felicity definitely knows all about Oliver Queen. He’s Diggle’s client, Starling City Comet’s star quarterback, and Ella’s all time favorite player. She talks about him all the time. She even owns one of his jerseys, which she wears all the time, including right now. Felicity has seen numerous pictures and some games of his in passing and he is extremely handsome, like model worthy handsome and wow do those pictures not do him justice.

It’s not until Felicity hears a throat clearing that she realizes she’s been staring at him for too long. He walks over to her with a smile on his face and stretches out his hand to her to shake. “Hi, I’m Oliver Queen.”

“Oh I know who you are. You’re Oliver Queen, quarterback to the Starling City Comets. My daughter really loves you and talks about you all the time. And your face is all over the place, which isn’t a problem because it’s a very handsome face, not that I stare at your face a lot it’s just kind of everywhere,” Felicity squeezes her eyes shut, “And I’m going to stop talking now.”

Felicity pushes her lips together tightly and blushes as she sees Oliver staring at her intently with a huge grin on his face. Why must her brain to mouth filter always betray her?

“Hi Oliver!” Ella yells excitedly as she comes over to them and Felicity breathes a sigh of relief as Oliver’s attention is diverted away from her. That relief is only short lived though as Ella launches herself at him.

Oliver stumbles back a bit and wraps his arms around Ella and hoists her up in order to keep them both from tumbling over. He laughs as he smiles down at the little spitfire in his arms. “Well hello there. What’s your name?”

Ella’s smile beams up at Oliver, obviously thrilled to have his attention as she replies with utter delight, “Ella!”

Felicity’s embarrassment disappears as her heart melts at the pure happiness on her daughter’s face and seeing Oliver smile right back down at her. His smile grows when he sees what she’s wearing. “It’s nice to meet you Ella. I like your shirt.”

If it’s even possible Ella’s smile grows even wider and she giggles, “Thank you! You’re my favorite player! You’re my momma’s favorite too.” Felicity freezes at her daughter’s words. Ella leans up closer to Oliver’s ear and in a loud whisper says, “I heard momma tell Aunt Lyla that she thinks you’re really cute and she’d watch you anytime.”

Oliver’s eyes jerk to her as a sly smirk appears on his face. Felicity closes her eyes as her cheeks redden again. That girl hears everything. She can hear Diggle and Lyla laugh in the background and she curses them in her mind until she hears Oliver whisper to Ella just as loud as she did, “Well, I think your mommy’s really cute too.” Felicity’s eyes widen and she hears Ella giggle in response. 

They stand there staring at each other, Felicity with her jaw dropped and Oliver with that smirk still in place on his face. She doesn’t know what to do or say, but thankfully Lyla cuts in with a smile of her own plastered on her face, “Dinner is ready.” With raised eyebrows as she looks over at her, “Hey Felicity, I made a lot of food if you and Ella want to stay over and join us for dinner?”

Before Felicity can decide whether it is a good idea or not to risk embarrassing herself even further in front of Oliver, even if it does mean she doesn’t have to cook, she hears Ella begging her with a “Please, momma!” and its almost impossible for Felicity to say no to her when she uses those puppy dog eyes on her, especially with Oliver’s face just a few inches away with an almost imploring look on his face.

“Ok,” Felicity starts, “but then we have to go straight next door so that we can get you ready for bed. You still have school in the morning.”

“Yes!” Ella yells out as she pumps her fist into the air, so much like her mother. Oliver chuckles at Ella’s enthusiasm. As he goes to set her down she clings on to him and asks, “Can I sit next to you Oliver?”

He looks at Felicity asking for permission and when she nods he says, “Of course! I want to sit next to my number one fan.”

Dinner passes by relatively smoothly with some small talk between Oliver, Digg, and Lyla. Felicity stays relatively silent, trying not to make a fool out of herself in front of Oliver again. Ella on the other hand talks practically nonstop with Oliver, mostly about football. She can see how impressed Oliver is with all of Ella’s football knowledge. 

Once dinner is finally over and Felicity and Ella are getting ready to leave, Ella runs up to Oliver and asks, “Can you sign my jersey, please?”

“Definitely,” Oliver responds with a soft smile. He grabs a pen from Diggle and signs his name on her back. “You know I have a game on Sunday and since John, Lyla, and Sara can’t be there I have a couple extra tickets if you guys want to come.”

Ella’s eyes widen impossibly wide as she turns to her mother turning on the puppy dog eyes again. “Please, momma! Pretty please! You said you’d take me to my first game this season.”

Well she’s right about that. Felicity had promised to take her to a game and the only weekend plans they have right now consist of sitting on the couch and watching movies. Felicity looks between her daughter and Oliver, who also has a smile on his face before replying, “Yes we can go,” Felicity points to her daughter, “but you have to remember to stay by my side the whole time. I don’t want to lose you in the crowd.”

Ella squeals all the way to the door as Oliver follows them out having to get home as well. “Thank you,” Felicity tells Oliver after goodbyes are said to the Diggles and the door is shut behind them, “This really means a lot to her.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Oliver murmurs. “She seems like a really great kid and you seem like a great mom who loves her daughter very much.” Felicity blushes at the compliment. “Hey and maybe after the game is over, if you aren’t too busy, the three of us can go out to eat and do something.”

“You mean like a date?” Felicity stutters. She hasn’t been on a date in years. After her boyfriend left when she was pregnant with Ella she was either too busy to be in a relationship or too hesitant to allow someone else into their lives. She tried once when Ella was three but after he found out she had a daughter things ended pretty quickly.

“Yes,” Oliver smiles at her, “a date.”

Felicity unlocks her apartment door and ushers Ella inside telling her to start her nightly routine ignoring her protests about wanting to stay with Oliver even though she could see the little girl’s eyes starting to droop as she rubbed her them. Ella rushed off after a small “bye Oliver” and a tight hug, which he returned.

Once Ella was inside Felicity turned back to Oliver. “Are you sure? I mean you know I have a daughter. Are you sure you want to get involved with someone who has a kid?”

“I’m not someone who scares easy,” Oliver began, “I like kids and Ella seems really great. How about I have someone drop off your tickets tomorrow and I’ll give you my number now and you can think about it and text me your answer. For what it’s worth,” Oliver smiles softly, “I really like you and Ella.” With that Oliver walked to the elevator and left.

Felicity stood outside her apartment for a minute shocked and frozen in place. She doesn’t move until she hears Ella calling for her inside.

“What did you say?” Ella asks eagerly as soon as she sees her mother. 

“Well, I haven’t given him an answer yet, I wanted to see if you were ok with it first,” Felicity murmurs as she runs her fingers through her daughters soft, blonde hair.

“I really liked him! Can we please go, momma? He was really nice and fun. I want to hang out with him again,” Ella responds excitedly, her wide hopeful eyes pleading with Felicity. 

She thinks back to this evening and how really nice he seemed and how great he was with Ella and Sara. He did really seem like a great guy and he already knows what he would be signing up for if they got into a relationship and Ella is obviously in love with him already so why not? “Ok then, I’ll tell him we said yes.”

“Yes!” Ella squeals loudly and Felicity laughs at how excited her daughter is. 

Felicity pulls out her phone and texts Oliver with a small smile on her face. _It’s a date_ her text reads and her smile grows even wider when Oliver immediately responds with _Can’t wait!_ and a couple smiling emojis.

It didn’t take her long to learn that that was one of the best decisions she has ever made.


End file.
